


From the Ashes

by thinlizzy2



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pining, R plus L equals J, References to canon character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:36:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4628943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/pseuds/thinlizzy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This could not be him, solid and steady Stannis Baratheon.  He was not the sort of man groped bastard boys in dark passages.  He was not the sort of man who got everything that he desired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [originally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/gifts).



Stannis Baratheon had heard of Jon Snow long before he ever met him. 

Robert used to refer to the boy when taunting Stannis, his least-favoured brother, with the kind of man he was not. _Even Ned Stark's managed to get a bastard on some loose-thighed wench _, Robert had often said. _So leave your mustached lady to her complaints and laments for a night and come to the brothels with your king._ And Stannis would just shake his head. Selyse suited him as well as any other woman and there was nothing he wanted to do in a brothel that he could bear for his brother to witness. __

__Later, he had heard more dangerous talk. Not just from the smallfolk in the taverns; that wouldn't have mattered too much at any rate. But the whispers spread through the nobility, gaining credence as they were repeated. _Something in the eyes_ , men would slur after too many glasses of wine. _Something in his bearing_ , the king's enemies would hiss with arched eyebrows and malicious sneers. No one went so far as to say it, to utter _dragon_ or _Targaryen_ or _prince_ , but a clever man could hear echoes of Rhaegar and Lyanna in the silences. Stannis had been relieved when he learned the boy had decided to take the black. He had no great love for Ned Stark, but nor did he harbour any desire to hurt the man. Taking away his son, or at least the boy he had claimed and raised as his son, would have been an ugly act. Luckily, Jon Snow had willingly foresworn any worldly claims and vowed to die unmarried and childless. _ _

__In the messy world in which they lived, Jon Snow had been a problem that had resolved itself most tidily. And, if nothing else, perhaps Stannis Baratheon had been predisposed to like him for that._ _

__But he had never anticipated needing the boy, and when that situation arose it had grated on him. As the great wheel turned and Robert died with only bastards, cuckoos and brothers to succeed him, Stannis found himself in need of Jon Snow's support among the black brothers. He was not a man who enjoyed being found wanting. He would have far rather traded titles for services, created a lord out of a bastard and taken due payment in return. But Jon had refused this clean and simple solution to Stannis's latest dilemma and that should have eliminated any lingering fondness he had for the boy._ _

__Yet, oddly enough, it did not._ _

__Snow had clearly been tempted by Stannis's offer. How could he not be? A great estate for his very own, a proper lordship, a true name – these were the things that bastards only dreamt of. And yet the boy had bitten his lips and shook his head._ _

__He had refused._ _

__Surprised beyond measure, Stannis had looked Jon in the eyes and tried to get a greater sense of him. Those strange eyes – nothing like Ned Stark's cool grey ones – had made Stannis wonder. Was Jon Snow refusing to become Lord of Winterfell because of his vows to the Night's Watch? Or because he felt, somehow, that he was entitled to even more?_ _

__Stannis told himself that it didn't matter. Jon Snow was a man of the Night's Watch and so he would remain. He had declared that himself. Whatever his rights or claims may have been once, they were no longer. All that mattered was that, in the midst of a war that led men to do damned foolish things, he could be reasonable._ _

__And it seemed for a time that he could. He was half in love with his honor, so perhaps he was poor Eddard's seed after all. But undercutting that was a level of practicality that Stannis could not attribute to anyone else. It did not bring to mind any of the people that were thought to have contributed to his existence._ _

__Perhaps it was the unique core of Jon himself._ _

__At any rate, Stannis responded to it. He was not a man who liked the counsel of many other men, but in desperate times it would not do to turn away sage advice. And so when Jon spoke Stannis found himself listening. And often – to his great surprise - he liked what he heard._ _

__Even more surprisingly, he liked what he _saw_. _ _

__He had really believed that he had tamed these impulses in himself. He was not Renly, after all. He was not one to forget himself and risk scandal with a pretty boy, regardless of how beguiling his rare smiles were, no matter how tempting the heat coming off his skin on a cold night might be. He would lie with his wife to make heirs, as well as they could. He would lie with his mistress to make magic. Jon Snow would not want him and even if he did there was no purpose to such a coupling._ _

__But it was hard to remember that one cold night when they had discussed strategy late into the night as the fire in the grate sputtered, coughed and ultimately failed. Jon's breath came out in little puffs of steam but he was young and a man of the North and therefore suffered less than Stannis. Jon said nothing about the matter until Stannis was visibly shaking, but when his distress could be ignored no longer Snow had reached across the table and wordlessly peeled off Stannis's useless gloves. Without faltering in his speech, he threaded his warm young fingers through Stannis's icy ones, sharing his head and massaging Stannis's sluggish blood back through his veins. Stannis stared at him but Jon kept his voice level and his eyes on the maps in front of them. Stannis could not read his expression. What was he thinking, touching a king like this, so intimately?_ _

__What was he doing touching another man like this?_ _

__If Stannis had been Renly he would have reached out to run a thumb over one of those perfect cheekbones; he would have leaned in for a kiss. But he was Stannis, and so he pulled away with an abrupt thanks and crammed his hands back into his useless gloves. He could only hope that Snow hadn't noticed the tremors in his fingers._ _

__He touched himself in his lonely bed that night, imagining that his fingers were Jon's. This was not a vice in which he often indulged; he was under-practiced to the point of being bad at it. But the memory of Jon's closeness, the way his eyes looked almost purple in the fading light, the heat of his hands and the heat that came off his body had Stannis gasping and writhing. In almost no time, he was spurting into his sheets like some kind of green boy._ _

__He was colder still, afterwards. His sweat chilled his brow._ _

__Since then, Stannis had forced himself to maintain a dignified distance between them. He stood across the room when they conferred, never getting close enough to feel Jon's warmth or catch his scent. He did not allow himself to hold those beautiful eyes for any longer than necessary. It was only when he drew the curtain between himself and temptation that he realised how accustomed he had become to standing a bit closer than normal, to indulging in a long glance or a brush of shoulders. He told himself that he had been right to end it before it became a distraction._ _

__There really was a great deal else to occupy his mind. New fronts of war seemed to be opening up at all times; enemies arose in the least expected places. These were the problems which he had been wrestling with the night when he came across Snow in an empty corridor, but such safe and warlike matters slipped away when he beheld Jon standing in the flickering torchlight. He felt a frightening warmth in the pit of his belly. Usually, he only saw Jon when he had summoned him. That gave him time to prepare for the boy's proximity. He was not a man who liked being caught off guard and thus he intended to simply pass by with a nod and a murmur of greeting._ _

__But then he saw that Jon Snow was crying._ _

__He was not weeping or sobbing. But there was a glistening trail down one cheek and Stannis heard the ragged quality in his breath. As soon as he noticed that he was no longer alone, Jon wiped at his face and tried to compose himself. But Stannis had seen what he had seen and the ache that created in his heart compelled him to stop and offer whatever comfort he could._ _

__Jon tried to wave Stannis away, but it seemed that he had grown as unaccustomed to being tended to as Stannis was to tending. It was his surprise – not Stannis's clumsy prodding – that made him give up the source of his pains. "It's her name day," he admitted. "Arya. She's-"_ _

__"Your sister." Stannis knew who Arya Stark was._ _

__"Lord Stark's daughter. I have no sister. Only brothers."_ _

__And suddenly Stannis was sick to death of it all. The lies upon lies. The vows that sought to break apart that which could never be severed. Jon Snow claimed to have no sister. Perhaps that was true. It was possible that his only sister died at the hands of the Mountain and Arya Stark was nothing but a cousin. But the boy cried at missing her name day, more affected by that loss than Stannis had been at the deaths of his two full brothers._ _

__"Do you believe that?" Stannis knew that the answer was important. It would tell him, once and for all, what sort of man Jon Snow really was._ _

__"I have to believe it."_ _

__And Stannis understood. There were things that he had to believe too. That he was the rightful king. That Shireen could ever succeed him. That there would someday be an end to the violence that had begun what felt like a lifetime ago._ _

__That he could live without touching Jon Snow again._ _

__As if to underscore the futility of it all, his hand rose, unbidden, to Jon's face. The finger of his glove caught a newly formed tear before it even had a chance to fall. By the Lord of Light and all the other gods, how was it that he could feel the boy's heat even through his leather?_ _

__"Then what is this?" Stannis asked, showing him the tear. Jon shrugged and turned away, and his refusal to acknowledge his own unhappiness made Stannis ache. "Look." He waved his hand at Jon's face. "Know yourself."__

Then the pink tip of Jon's tongue darted out from between his lips and he licked his own salt from Stannis's glove. "Gone." 

__And Stannis knew that he was lost.__

Their faces were much too close. It was like standing next to a heap of burning coals; Stannis tingled with new sweat. From such proximity, Jon Snow could have been anyone. Eddard Stark. Rhaegar. Robert. Stannis himself. "You think that is possible? " For some reason, he thought of his own dead children, sealed away in their bottles and in the darkest corners of Selyse's mind. Why was it that so many men sired bastard sons whom they didn't even want and yet he could not have one trueborn? "You can just make misery disappear?"

Jon did not move away. "We make so many things disappear here at the wall. Crimes and histories, families and obligations. Little horse-faced sisters who dream of being knights. And yet misery seems to linger."

Stannis prayed to any and all gods that were listening that the boy would understand his next and final question. "Will you try?"

Jon Snow nodded. And the rest was as heated as a battle. 

__Stannis's teeth drew blood as he kissed Jon; the way that he pulled at the boy's hair must have been extremely painful. But Jon gave as good as he got, forcing Stannis back against the wall. The hands clawing at his back were as hot as coals even through Stannis's furs. They rutted against each other - tooth and nail and muscle and bone. Every single touch was a burning spark._ _

__Stannis felt like he was floating above the scene, like steam over a kettle. This could not be him, solid and steady Stannis Baratheon. He was not the sort of man groped bastard boys in dark passages. He was not the sort of man who got everything that he desired._ _

__Jon pulled away from him, and for a moment Stannis was terrified that he had also remembered what kind of man Stannis was not. But then he thrust with his pelvis, grinding his hardness against Stannis's, and Stannis had to close his eyes and moan at the pleasure of it all._ _

__"Stannis, get on your knees," Jon Snow breathed. And it might have been a common enough request for a beautiful youth to make of a besotted lover, but there was something in his voice that penetrated the haze of lust that had settled over Stannis's mind. It was not simply the confidence of one who knew he was desired. It was even more than the strength that should be expected from the leader of the Night's Watch, the man who held the wall. It was a quality that suggested a man who was born to give orders and who instinctively knew that he should be obeyed._ _

__And so Stannis obeyed him. Kneeling on the hard floor with his face pressed against the burning muscle of Jon's thighs, he shuddered at the situation as he knew it to be: a Baratheon king kneeling before a Targaryen bastard. But even as his mind reeled with the implications, he was unlacing Jon's breeches with eager fingers._ _

__Stannis took one final gasp of cold northern air. Then he opened his mouth wider and surrendered to the flames._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Written for originally for M/M Rares 2015. Thank you so much for all the great ASOIAF prompts and pairings, even though it was hard to choose just one. I was thrilled to be able to claim this!


End file.
